Vintage Poster Archives
You Buy Em Well Fly Em 1942 | WW2 Defense Bonds Poster
You Buy Em Well Fly Em 1942 | WW2 Defense Bonds Poster
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A US Army Air Force pilot leans forward from the open cockpit of his aircraft, grinning, right thumb raised at the viewer. A formation of Douglas SBD Dauntless planes fans across the pale blue sky behind him at every altitude and angle. The crimson italic headline fills the upper third of the sheet: "you buy 'em, we'll fly 'em!" At the base, three lines of bold near-black type deliver the directive: DEFENSE BONDS STAMPS. A circular emblem at lower right carries the secondary slogan alongside the Concord Minute Man: "The more bonds you buy, the more planes will fly."
This poster was designed by J. Walter Wilkinson (1892–1988) and his son Walter G. Wilkinson (1917–1971), the father-and-son commercial illustrators who signed their collaborative work "Wilkinsons." J. Walter Wilkinson, born on Maryland's eastern shore, had built a career in newspaper illustration and advertising agency work before the war, with clients including Ivory Soap, Pabst Beer, and Ballantine Ale. The pair produced a series of six bond posters for the US Treasury Department's Defense Savings Staff, of which this is the most widely recognised. It was printed by the U.S. Government Printing Office in 1942 (GPO imprint 1942-O-436780, Form D.S.S 179).
The poster belongs to the second wave of American home-front bond advertising. After the US entered the war in December 1941, the government reframed its bond appeal: where WWI Liberty Loan posters had used fear and coercion, the Defense Bond series chose confidence and direct appeal. The pilot is not issuing a command, he is extending an offer. That shift in register, from threat to partnership, is legible in the composition: the figure faces the viewer squarely, goggles up, jacket open, thumbs up. The aircraft behind him are not menacing; they are the payoff, what the bonds buy.
The poster is held in the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division (LC-USZC4-2751), the Smithsonian National Postal Museum, and the UNT Digital Library. As a US Government Printing Office publication, it is confirmed public domain. Reproduced on 200gsm Enhanced Matte Fine Art Paper from a restored archival source.
